


Personal Care

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel & Nephilim Wing Care, Angst, Caring Dean Winchester, Castiel is a Good Father, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilty Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Kline is a Good Son, Protective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Jack experiences his first moult which is a difficult process for any angel.Cas has been there before; no one helped him, and he’s going to make sure Jack doesn’t have to go through this alone.But it raises awkward questions which Cas would rather avoid: like who helps him with his moults?Because neither the Winchesters, or Jack, know the condition of Cas’s wings.  That’s about to change.





	Personal Care

There weren’t many rooms in the bunker large enough for a celestial to spread his wings so, in the end, Cas requested to have the war room for a period undisturbed and had Jack join him there.

“I guess I thought,” Jack said, squirming a little as he took off his shirt and turned so his back was to his father, “that it’d stop on its own. It’s driving me crazy.”

Cas could sympathise. He remembered his first moult, and it being doubly difficult since he didn’t have anyone to help him with it. Gabriel was gone by then, and no one was willing to help the angel with black wings.

He’d got through, though it had been painful and unpleasant, and Cas had decided then that he’d never rely on another angel to help him with a moult, ever.

Of course, that didn’t matter now.

He could see the glimmering outline of Jack’s wings, but the only true relief would be for the boy to manifest them, and Jack did so at Cas’s request.

They were huge, and beautiful; they had an impressive span, and Cas studied the tawny coloured feathers that he could see beneath the thick coating of down.

Jack’s moult was well under way; no wonder he’d been so out of sorts the past couple of days.

“This will happen every year,” he told Jack. “But there are things we can do to help.”

He waited until Jack nodded his permission, and then very carefully began to rub his fingers through the thick down on his son’s right wing. It came loose in thick clumps that quickly fell to the war room floor.

Once he was done, Cas knew he’d have quite the mess to clean up. But, if Jack had no objections, the down (and any feathers that came loose - there were bound to be some) might be kept; it could be used in a variety of spells.

Dean had joked, when Cas had told him why they needed the room, that he might also get a new pillow and duvet out of it, but Cas was pretty sure he was kidding.

It took him nearly ten minutes to finish Jack’s right wing, and the boy almost sagged with relief when he was done.

“It was so itchy,” he complained. “Do Sam and Dean do this for you?”

“Uh, no,” Cas said, and quickly moved to Jack’s other wing by way of distraction. “You’ll feel much better soon.” 

He got to work, brushing out the down, and straightening the feathers underneath. They were already looking a lot glossier; Jack had a good, healthy span, and once Cas was finished he’d be much more comfortable.

“I can help you, if they don’t?” Jack craned his neck to peer over his shoulder at Cas. “I don’t mind. You’re my father.”

Cas avoided his stare. The last thing he wanted to do was admit the terrible condition of his own wings. He hadn’t looked at them in years; pulling them onto this plane, as Jack had done so easily, was agonising enough without actually touching them.

Even thinking of them was painful.

“I don’t really need them tended to, Jack,” he said, as gently as possible, hoping the young nephilim wouldn’t take it as a rejection.

Still, he caught a flash of hurt in the boy’s eyes, before Jack looked away again. “Okay. If…. If you don’t want to.”

Cas finished with Jack’s other wing, and then came to stand in front of him.

“Jack…. I made a terrible mistake some years ago. I paid for it, but I didn’t pay alone. None of...none of the angels came through it unscathed, Jack.”

Jack frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”

Cas clenched his fists. He wasn't going to summon his wings fully, as Jack had done; that was unnecessary and would distress his son too much, and Cas knew it would only cause himself pain.

He was also conscious of the fact that Dean and Sam were nearby, and Jack would likely draw their attention and their presence.

So far, the only person who knew the dire state of his wings was him, and Metatron, though he was gone now.

Cas was happy to keep it that way.

He caused the shadow of his wings to flicker into view and Jack stared at the fractured arch of bone on either side of him in horror.

“Castiel!”

Cas dismissed them, and shushed Jack gently. “It’s alright. As long as I keep them where you keep your wings, when you’re not using them, it’s fine.”

Well, not fine, but Jack didn’t need to know more than that.

He watched, puzzled as Jack reached out to him, and realised too late what the boy was going to do.

Jack’s Grace surged through him, raw and overwhelming, but Castiel grit his teeth and let it ebb easily away.

He pulled Jack into his arms when the boy’s face fell. “Castiel, I’m sorry. It didn’t change anything. I don’t understand.”

Castiel could feel the boy’s genuine dismay at not being able to help. He reached out, soothing him with his Grace.

“It was a spell,” he said. “Cast to shut Heaven’s gates, and causing all of us to fall. It can’t be undone, not the damage it did. So this isn’t your fault.”

All the same, he knew Jack was unhappy with that outcome. He could feel it. So he perhaps wasn’t surprised when Dean came knocking at his door that night.

“Two new pillows,” he said, as he came in and tossed himself down on Cas’s bed. “And a new duvet.”

Cas was putting away the book on Sumerian half demons, and turned to frown at the hunter.

“What,” Dean said. “You look like it’s some kind of angel taboo or something.”

It technically wasn’t, but only because no angel had been in a familial situation with one or more humans so that the product of their moult could be so used. 

It felt, well, _weird_ , and he told Dean so which made him laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess.” Dean sat up, and then he wasn’t laughing. “Look, Jack told me and Sam about your wings. Don’t get pissed at him.”

Cas sat down next to Dean. “I had a feeling he might.”

“Should have been you telling us.”

Cas shrugged. “You’ve both had enough to deal with, and there seemed no point. None of us can do anything about it.”

Now Dean was the one looking pissed. “I don’t care if the whole damn world is falling down around our ears. You’re part of this family, and if you’re in pain, or something's wrong, then you tell us and we deal with it. And if we can’t, you tell us anyway so we can at least be there for you.”

Cas looked down, contrite. He knew how much Dean valued family, and how badly he tried to keep his safe.

It was just… Even now, Cas sometimes struggled to accept that included him.

He started when Dean pulled him into a hug.

“And how do you know we can’t do anything about it,” Dean said quietly to him. “We haven’t tried yet. Don’t count us out, until we’re out, okay? Tomorrow, we start hitting the books. And if that doesn’t work, there’s any number of people out there who owe us favours.

“One of them’ll have something, Cas.”

He nodded, but he couldn’t quite believe it. Metatron’s spell had been devastatingly effective; Cas doubted anything in the bunker’s lore, or any witch or vampire, or even Demi-god, could undo what harm the scribe (and he, himself, he wasn’t forgetting the role his own stupidity had played) had inflicted.

Dean seemed to know when Cas was humouring him. He leaned back and fixed the angel with a stubborn stare.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “we’re going to make this right. Whether you believe it or not.”

He got up, and went to the door. “But however it turns out, Cas: we’re here for you, okay?”

Yes, Cas knew, they were. Because even if at times his own self doubt decried it, he was…. He was family.


End file.
